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Written by The Guru
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Sunday, 13 January 2008 |
From Madonna to your mother, everyone you know is doing yoga and singing its praises. You're intrigued, but you're not sure how, or if it all, yoga will fit in with your current training routine. Whether you're an avid runner, a serious cyclist, or just a fitness enthusiast who hits the gym a few days a week, yoga could have a lot to offer you.
Here's a get-started guide to improving your flexibility, endurance, and strength with this age-old discipline.
Why Athletes Might Benefit From Yoga
Athletes can enjoy the stress relief and deep relaxation of yoga as much as anyone. But experts on yoga claim that there are five compelling reasons for athletes to try yoga:
1. To Increase Flexibility and Range of Motion
Regular yoga practice makes the spine more flexible and muscles more supple—something all athletes need, says Donna Davidge, a Kundalini yoga teacher at New York Sports Club. What's more, it increases flexibility, strengthens and lengthens the whole body, increases range of motion, and releases the joints.
2. To Improve Your Ability to Focus Yoga
Many yoga poses build core strength. The poses in conjunction with movements are an excellent type of resistance training that benefits every athlete.
3. To Improve Your Ability to Focus
Yoga improves focus and mental clarity.
"You won't get as much from sports if your mind isn't clear," says Davidge.
4. To Correct Imbalances in the Body Caused by Training
"Training of any kind is repetitive by nature," explains Baron Baptiste, owner of Baron Baptiste Power Yoga Institutes in Cambridge, MA and Philadelphia, PA. "[Training is] one dimensional and can create imbalances; some muscle groups are strengthened, but others are ignored. Yoga can fix these imbalances."
5. To Relieve Chronic Aches and Pains That Often Accompany Regular Training
As a result, you have less pain and more agility and mobility, which allows you to react more efficiently, says Baptiste, who has taught yoga to NFL and NBA players as well as golf and tennis pros.
6. To Stay in the Game
Whether you run, cycle, or kick box, "regular yoga practice may allow you to do what you love for the rest of your life," says Richard Faulds, president of Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health in Lenox, MA.
While it seems indisuputable that yoga enhances flexibility, none of these claims for yoga have any scientific evidence behind them.
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